


Disaster Stories

by QueenTheatrics



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bi!Jake, F/M, disaster stories, how do you tag, no spoilers for...... any part of the show really, the course of a year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 15:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17900723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenTheatrics/pseuds/QueenTheatrics
Summary: It's always the start of September when the stories start up.





	Disaster Stories

one

It’s always the start of September when the stories start up. It’s as if the balmy weeks of August pass away in a haze, and with the end of summer comes the start of _where were you when it happened_. From September 1st, no one needs to ask what ‘it’ is. It’s a sick sort of fascination, that brief almost-never-was brush with death, a Before and After that cuts the past into two halves. For that moment, the world balanced on the razor-sharp edge of a knife, teetering back and forth, threatening to tip. The squad tell their own stories, and listen to the rest. Charles was in Midtown when it happened. Rosa was in school. Frankie from downstairs was at home in Iowa, at a bar with her mother, and they turned down the music and changed the TV channel, and the whole bar watched together. Lohank, from the night squad, didn’t hear it had happened until he woke from a nap to thirteen missed calls from his wife. When the stories start, Terry makes an excuse to go to the break room, or the bathroom, or the copy room. Holt excuses himself to his office, and the door stays closed. Amy watches and she listens and she doesn’t say anything, but Jake knows she was at home with stomach flu, and she’d had to watch it alone. He knows because he asked five years ago, and she told him. She’s never found the courage to ask the same question in return. 

That year, some beat cop starts it up. He’s fresh out of the academy, fresh out of his teenage years. He couldn’t have been more than ten when it happened. He’s bringing up a file to Rosa, and as he leaves, he sees an article on Charles’s computer, and Jake can almost see the cogs turning in his mind.  
“It’s getting close to that time again, eh?” The guy says. He’s Canadian, Jake remembers now, remembers seeing it on intake paperwork on Holt’s desk, hearing him talking about playing hockey on frozen lakes, remembers the guy’s phone case and its red and white flag, winking at him from between his fingers. He lived in Canada until he was fifteen. “I was in Canada, of course, when it happened.” No one asks what ‘it’ is. But curiosity wins out, and the squeak of rolly chairs turning echoes around the office in stereo. Jake looks at Amy, and Amy looks back. She shrugs.  
“Bathroom,” she says, to no one, and leaves.  
The cacophony of excitable voices rises around him, threatens to engulf. Rosa, ever stoic, has told her story in a monotone, and Charles has half risen out of his chair in his anticipation to be part of the group. Hitchcock and Scully are telling a long, rambling story that no one is listening to. Holt is in his office. Terry is nowhere to be found. Jake, surrounded by chaos, is quiet. Only Amy, now standing by the door, seems to notice.  
“What about you, Jake?” The guy—his name far beyond the reaches of Jake’s mind as the panic sweat washes over him—turns and looks pointedly at him, half hidden behind his computer monitor, his hoodie bunched around his neck. Amy unfolds her arms.  
“Jake, can you help me get a box down in the copy room?” She turns and walks and deliberately doesn’t wait for him to follow. When they reach the room, she picks a box from the shelf at random and smiles as she sends him on his way. The guy is long gone, the conversation moved on by the time he gets back, to restaurants, to relationships, to reading. Jake settles into his chair and tries not to look up when Amy walks past him. He does kick her under the desk when she sits back down, but it’s a fond kick, and he knows she knows. 

two

They’re standing on the twentieth floor of a thirty story high rise. They were called up to take a witness statement, and the young woman—barely twenty, with a red-cheeked baby bouncing on her hip—had gone to make them both coffee. She was flustered and needed the moment so they’d allowed it, and now they’re standing, side by side, looking out over the Brooklyn skyline. What they’re seeing is a wash of brownstone buildings, a far cry from the sleek, shiny edges of Manhattan’s landscape. She looks at the trees in the park below them, and just sees one leaf, yellow and curling, float its way to the ground. She knows the landscape doesn’t look different from here—they’re facing the wrong direction, for one—but it’s always in her mind when she looks out. That absence. It’s September 9th, and they’re both jumpy, and the deliberate and mutual ‘let’s not talk about it’ is a blessing and a curse. 

She’s about to say something, or maybe he is, she isn’t sure, but they’re interrupted by a voice, lilting and definitely Male, drifting in from the kitchen the woman is supposed to be alone in. They nod at each other and burst in, ready for action. No one is in there but the woman and her baby—and the YouTube video of a children’s story playing from her phone. They apologise and she accepts. They grab their coffees and ask their questions in the kitchen, where the small high window shows nothing but sky. 

That night, they’re on a stakeout, and she finally gets around to asking the question.  
“I never asked you...” she says. She’s looking intently through the binoculars at the back of the warehouse, but she knows there’s nothing to see yet. “When it happened... you’ve never...”  
“I was in college,” he says, and his voice, for once, is careful. “Mom was on a field trip with her students in Manhattan. I didn’t hear from her for hours and I thought—” He takes a breath. “I changed my voicemail message so she’d know I was okay. She left me a voicemail later, telling me she loved me. The phone lines were so jammed that I—” another pause, another breath. “It was the next morning before I managed to talk to her.”  
“Oh,” is all she says. It feels inadequate, but it’s no more than he’s expecting. It’s been so long that the sharp pain of it all has softened to a dull ache by now. He doesn’t dwell on it often. He thinks of who he was then, all those years ago, before crushing debt had taken hold, before he’d met anyone he loved now. Jake, age twenty, halfway towards a degree he wasn’t sure he’d actually earned was a person he isn’t sure he’d recognise.  
“I wanted to give blood,” he says, after that. “I waited hours. But they wouldn’t—” he cuts himself off. He grabs the binoculars from Amy, looks through them with a feverish gasp, says ‘it’s him,’ and bolts from the car in pursuit of the perp. The conversation is left hanging on the half-open door of the car.  
They pursue the perp for seven blocks, past diners and supermarkets and coffee shops. The guy jumps a fence and Jake follows him over. Amy sprints around to head him off on the other side. It ends, eventually, with the guy cornered in an alley, chest heaving. If looks could kill, Jake would be dead a thousand times over with the glare the guy is giving him.  
“Jeffrey Landgraab, you’re under arrest for—“ Jake starts, but before he can get any further the perp surges forward. He throws Jake to the ground and gets a few good punches in. He stands and kicks him for good measure. Jake curls in on himself, and the guy backs off. A moment later, Jake scrambles back to his feet, kicks the guy’s legs out from under him and gets his arms behind his back. Still, Amy’s sure she heard something crunch halfway through the altercation, and her eyes rove Jake’s arms, his face, checking for bruises she knows she won’t see yet. Jake insists he’s fine, and reads the Miranda rights with barely a hitch in his breath.

Jake doesn’t show up for work the next morning. At 9am, Amy isn’t concerned—she’d have been concerned, frankly, if Jake _had_ been on time, because that would have meant that she’d fallen through a wormhole into an alternate universe where he had good timekeeping skills. At 9.30, she considers texting him, but holds off because Holt calls her into his office for an update on a case. At 10am, she’s worried.  
“Terry?” She says, when the long hand of the clock points to the water-damp ceiling. Jake isn’t prompt, but he’s usually in by now, and the only time he hadn’t been recently had been when he’d fallen down an open manhole and had to wait for someone to help him out.  
“I’m calling, Santiago, chill.” Terry says, with the receiver already to his ear. She pretends to work on case files, but the words swim on the page in front of her like tiny, frantic ants. The ants are reaching fever pitch by the time Terry hangs up the phone and swears loudly. A silence falls over the precinct.  
“Jake’s in hospital,” Terry says, and Amy stands up so quickly that her chair rolls back until it crashes into the desk behind her.  
“Sorry, everyone,” Amy says, looking around at the precinct. All their eyes are on her, and then quickly look away. Charles looks utterly stricken, and a little like his brain has stopped processing new information. Rosa and Gina are exchanging looks behind her back—she can see them reflected in her computer monitor. She chooses to ignore them and makes her way to Holt’s office. The door is open but she knocks on the doorframe anyway. He looks up as she comes in.  
“Sir, Jake is in hospital. Can I..?”  
She already has her jacket and bag. It’s the first time he’s seen her looking as if she wouldn’t accept anything but _yes_ as an answer. He obliges her, of course he does, and sends her off with his regards to give to Jake.

And the thing is, Holt knows about what is between her and Jake, the spark that has not yet been fanned into a flame. She knows Holt knows, and he knows that she knows that he knows, and the more she dances around it, the tighter the lines around his mouth sit, the deeper the disappointed furrow between his eyes gets when he looks at her and Jake. She hates disappointing Holt, but Jake isn’t ready for her yet, and there’s nothing in her that could ever hurt Jake, for any reason she can fathom. Right now it’s a choice between not having Jake or hurting him, and that’s really no choice at all.

When she gets to the hospital, Jake is awake. He has one arm in a sling and wires attached to his finger and hand, and he looks pale and sickly but absolutely ecstatic to see her.  
“Amy, this place has NBC!” He says, waving the remote in his good hand at the screen.  
“ _You_ have NBC, Jake.” She says. Something in her loosens at the sight of his grin, and she realises that she’d been clenching her fists since she left the 99.  
“Yeah, but I don’t have a bed that does this, do I?” He presses a button on the remote and the bed moves up and down with a mechanical whir. In spite of herself, she drops her jacket onto the chair by the door and climbs onto the bed next to him. She makes grabby hands at the remote.  
“Let me try,” She says, and he hands it over, his grin widening. The bed entertains her for five minutes—it would entertain Jake for much longer, she’s sure, but she deposits the remote in the pocket by the bed, and watches his disappointed frown morph into confusion as she turns to him. “So what’s wrong with you?” She asks. He scrunches up his face, as if he’s been waiting for this. The nurse bustles in and out, checking his charts and his BP monitor and giving them fond, all too knowing smiles. Amy avoids her gaze, because she doesn’t know how to convey what’s between them, that young, untouched thing that she fears as much as she loves.  
“Broke my wrist,” he says, oblivious to her internal turmoil. He holds up his right hand, which is bound in a cast. “Broke a couple of ribs when the dude kicked me. I bruised my kidneys, which I didn’t even know was _possible_ , so that’s kinda rad.” She rolls her eyes and shoves him with her shoulders. He huffs out a laugh and then winces as the movement pulls on his ribs. She feels like she’s been doused in cold water.  
“You okay?” She says, tentatively. There’s a moment of silence that seems to last forever, and then he says, ‘yep, yep, I’m good,’ in a voice that lets her know he definitely isn’t. She nods and doesn’t say anything, because there isn’t anything to say. 

They watch TV until visiting hours are over, and then she flashes her badge so she can stay an hour longer. Terry calls once, Holt twice, and she loses count of the number of times Charles’ number appears on her screen, but she silences her phone and sends them all a text. It says _‘Jake is fine. I’ll fill you in tomorrow. Can’t talk now, he’s sleeping.’_ It’s a lie—Jake is eating Jello next to her and laughing carefully at a rerun of Seinfeld, but she’s earned the right to be a little selfish, and she wants Jake to herself right now. 

three

The man is going to jump. 

On the street corner, looking up, a dozen cops are stationed below, ready to cordon off the scene or storm the building or leave, on Charles’ orders. Amy and Jake are among the officers, whose gazes are trained on that window on the fifteenth floor, where they can just see a pair of brown shoes dangling over the windowledge. It’s been an hour, maybe two, with little to report. The day is sunny, but there’s a stiff breeze that’s cutting right through her light jacket, and she eyes the windbreakers the uniformed officers are wearing, that Jake had thought to grab before they’d left. She wishes she could hear what’s happening up there, but the only person who has an earpiece is the Sergeant on duty. She’s just debating the merits of trying to use her signature Amy charm on the guy when a gasp comes from the onlookers. She looks up.

There’s a distant yell, and the man lurches forward and back. Amy grabs Jake’s wrist. Her grip is just this side of too tight, but Jake is too distracted to tell her to let up. After a moment, the guy above them stops swaying, and a collective sigh of relief goes around the bystanders. Amy’s grip loosens and she pulls her hand back, shoving them deep in her pockets. She doesn’t look at him but he knows exactly what she’s thinking, because he’s thinking it too. She’s thinking _sorry_ and _i’m scared_ and _i think i missed your hand_. His fingers twitch, but his eyes never leave the window above.

They don’t know what Charles says to him to make him come back in, and Charles won’t tell them. But the important thing is that the guy is fine, and Charles is fine—he’s a hero, actually, and bearing it well. Jake takes him out that night to say well done, and to release the last of the tension that has been set into Charles’ shoulders since he emerged from the building that afternoon. It’s late when Jake gets home. He half shuffles up the stairs so he doesn’t wake the neighbour’s illegal dog with his footsteps, and as he locks the door behind him, he sees a text from Amy.  
_I hope it went well tonight with Charles_. The text was sent an hour before, which he knows was already an hour past her bedtime. She’s been having trouble sleeping this past few weeks—they all have, if they’re honest. It’s a September thing, and a New York thing, and a Police thing, and the work group chat is more often than not its most active past midnight. He replies with a picture of him and Charles, taken with the selfie camera, blurred and grinning and real. A moment later, the little typing bubble pops up, and then it disappears. He stares at his phone for a few minutes, but the reply never comes, so he turns the ringer off and throws the phone on his bed.

That night in the shower, he feels a sting when the water hits his wrist. He looks down and sees five tiny half moons pressed into the skin, where her fingernails had cut deep enough to draw blood. He hadn’t even noticed she’d gripped him that tightly, and he stays under the spray, rubbing the sting out of his wrist until the water runs cold.

four

She shows up one night in late September reeking of booze. There are tear tracks on her face, mascara lines that criss cross down her cheeks and into her neck like spider webs.  
“I didn’t know where else to go.” She says. He opens the door wide and lets her in. His apartment seems smaller somehow with her in it. It’s like her presence, unfamiliar in this state, takes up twice the real estate of regular Amy. She’s drunk, but subdued, and he’s never seen her like this. This is beyond six drink Amy, beyond eight, even, and he’s not sure where she’s been that they would have still served her, with her back-and-forth sway and her glazed eyes, her soft, shiny, ruffled hair, the mascara tracks blotting her face. He hands her some of his clothes and the makeup wipes he started keeping under the sink on Gina’s advice and nudges her gently towards the bathroom. She comes out ten minutes later looking clean, if not fresh. Her eyes are clearer, and she must have found a hairbrush, because her hair is smooth, falling in waves down her back. It looks soft. Jake wants to twirl it between his fingers. He thrusts a bottle of water into her hands instead and his fingers twitch as they fall back to his sides.

They stand in the living room, facing each other, the space between them feeling solid and untraversable. Jake doesn’t know what to say, and it seems like Amy doesn’t either.  
“It was a bad date.” she says, eventually. He doesn’t ask who, and she doesn’t offer an explanation. He just closes his mouth and tries to be patient, like Holt is teaching him, like Terry is, always. Her breath catches in her throat. Against his better judgement, he offers her another drink. She says no, but it comes out like ‘noooooooo’, all long, loose vowels from somewhere deep within. The clock strikes midnight and somewhere in the apartment, his phone buzzes.  
“You should get that,” she says, sliding down onto the floor. “Could be a booty call.”  
“Charles was baking flan tonight,” he says, laughing in spite of himself, in spite of her. “It’s probably just a picture of that.” He joins her, his back against the couch.  
They sit on the floor, in the dark, in the quiet, watching the streetlights flicker outside Jake’s window. It’s never truly silent, not in New York, but there are lulls, moments of peace that are never really noticeable until they end. The silence between them, however, almost a tangible thing, is deafening.  
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love.” She picks at the label on her bottle. “Have you?” She thrusts the question into the silence like an offering. It hangs heavy in the air, waiting for Jake to snatch it or Amy to take it back. He takes a long drag from his bottle. His throat bobs.  
He snatches the question.  
“I have,” He says, and doesn't elaborate.  
“How did you know?”  
“Felt different after a while.” He says, with a shrug. “Stopped feeling it.”  
_Was that how it was with me?_ is what she wants to ask, is what is on the tip of her tongue, ready to fly forwards if she dares let it. Her heart thuds in her chest, and she watches the long line of his neck, the soft up-down of his Adam’s apple as he takes another drink. She decides she doesn’t dare, and instead says, “Sofia?” He makes a face, but doesn’t answer beyond a strangled sort of noise. She doesn’t probe further, ever hesitant, ever cautious of the paper thin boundaries between them that grow more transparent every passing day.  
“You weren’t in love with Teddy?” He says, eventually. She actually snorts, and then feels so unkind that it blooms like a physical ache in her chest. He’s looking at her, eyebrows raised, pupils blown black as his eyes meet hers.  
“No,” She says, eventually. “I wasn’t in love with Teddy. I thought I could be, at first, but, well... you met him.”  
“Dude loves Pilsners,” Jake agrees.

Later, he plays with her hair even though braids are beyond him, and he pretends he doesn’t notice the silent tears that come to her eyes. She falls asleep sitting against the couch, her head lolling back at an uncomfortable angle, her cheek pressed against his knee. Jake carries her through to his bed and pulls the covers up to her chin. She wakes, briefly, and grabs his wrist. “Stay,” She says, and he says “okay,” and then goes to sleep on the couch when her breathing evens and slows. She’s spooning his favourite pillow, engulfed in the rest, so he uses a balled up jumper to cushion his head. It takes him a long time to fall asleep, thinking about her in his home in his bed in his clothes, and the sigh in her voice when she’d asked him to stay. He falls asleep to the sound of the city, the hum of his fridge from the kitchen, the creak of the floorboards above.  
In his dreams, he sees her. He only sees her.  
He wakes with a crick in his neck to the sound of the front door closing, and then she’s there, holding two coffees, wearing her outfit from last night with one of his plaid shirts over the top, and she looks ridiculous and gorgeous all at once. He accepts the coffee as she sits next to him on the couch, and he bumps her shoulder with his own affectionately. 

Two months later, he repays the favour. He has his own date that goes bad, and he’s seven drinks deep and knocking lightly on her door before he’s fully aware of what’s happening. He tries to avoid thinking about the fact that her apartment was where he went automatically. When she lets him in, she makes him drink a big glass of water. He’s halfway through when he stops drinking, gags, and runs to the toilet. There are fewer personal revelations that night, but Amy does have Monopoly, and once he’s stopped throwing up he ends up getting completely thrashed in more than one game. She teaches him to play ridiculous card games after that, ones that involve slapping each other’s hands and yelling random words, and she wins every time with what he’s sure are made up rules. He isn’t sure how she knows that he doesn’t want to go to sleep, but she just keeps dealing him in until the sun is high in the sky and the bags under his eyes are in danger of becoming permanent. 

five

In later years, it’s called The Really Bad Winter, capitalised. When they’re living it, it’s just a nuisance. Amy wakes up the morning it starts and looks out at the snow, falling lazily to the ground where it’s sticking together in clumps. She sighs, picks up her car keys, then thinks better of it and gets the subway to work. Their part of the city hasn’t been hit as bad as others. She’s heard reports of snowfalls burying people, of cars careening into the sides of buildings, of people being stuck without central heating as the temperature dropped past zero. Her mother has called her six times, and her brother Cedro, the fireman, keeps sending her texts on Ways To Not Die In The Snow. In the 99th precinct, the snow is just making people lazy. It’s a slow day for them, and they aren’t called out for more than a handful of cases. By the time the end of their shift comes, the snow is ankle deep and still falling.  
“Did you drive here this morning, Detective Santiago?” Captain Holt asks, as he, Jake and Amy stand outside shuffling their impractical shoes and waiting for the courage to start their journeys home.  
“No, sir, I took the subway.” Amy says. Her thumb swipes back and forth on the strap of her bag as she maps the route to the subway in her head, trying to anticipate the obstacles she’ll encounter, whether her shoes will survive the journey, whether she remembered to put her gloves in her jacket pocket this morning.  
“The nearest subway station is closed,” Holt says. It’s only now she notices him scrolling through texts on his phone. “Kevin worked from home today and he has been texting me updates.”  
“Thank you, sir. I’ll go to the next station.” Amy says. She reevaluates her route, adding on the extra time it’ll take to get to the next station along, and barely suppresses a wince at the thought of the snow seeping into her shoes, soaking the ankles of her slacks. Captain Holt checks his phone again and shakes his head.  
“That one is closed, too.” He says. The deep timbre of his voice betrays his sympathy, and she hates feeling helpless.  
“My apartment is closer,” Jake says, stepping forward. His hands are shoved deep in the pockets of his coat. It’s navy blue, made of wool, the collar popped against the windchill. The colour brings out his eyes, which is a thought that makes her stomach clench. She hasn’t seen the coat before, but it’s nice. Grown up. Warmer than what she is currently wearing. “We can go there until you figure out a way home.” With a glance at the ground, he adds, too casual, “and my couch is comfy if you need to crash.”  
Amy always has a toothbrush, deodorant and contact lens case in her bag. Amy keeps a change of clothes in her locker. Amy is cold and tired and getting more so with each passing minute.  
Amy has no reason to say no.  
“Sure, that would be great.” She says, hesitantly. If either man notices, they don’t show it.

Jake drives to work almost every day, but when he woke up and saw the snow, he decided to walk. This is what he proposes to Amy as they turn away from Captain Holt, who is waiting for Kevin to pick him up in the 4x4 they rented a week before the cold front was to hit New York. Holt offers them a ride to Jake’s apartment but neither detective will hear of it. Jake insists he enjoyed the walk, and Amy, despite the cold, refuses to admit any sort of weakness. Besides, there’s something about the idea of an adventure through the snow with Jake that sends a thrill of anticipation through her. She tamps it down, behind a door she knows is there but isn’t quite ready to open yet. The route to Jake’s apartment is a twenty-five minute walk made forty by the conditions. They climb over small mountains of snow that litter the sidewalks, stop to pet every dog on the way (Amy standing far back with her scarf over her face) and have a brief unintentional ice skating contest as they attempt to cross a road. Jake fares better over the rough terrain—his lace up shoes don’t keep out the snow, but they do have far more grip than Amy’s sensible but not snow-appropriate ankle boots. They’re a few minutes from home when Amy slips on a patch of ice, flails madly for a second, and is caught under the arms by Jake. He hoists her gracelessly back to a standing position and they hold onto each other’s shoulders all the way to his front door. She can feel the warmth of his hand through the fabric of her jacket, and blames her shiver on the cold.

She takes her jacket off as she crosses the threshold. It’s been a while since she’s been here—they do movie night once in a while but it’s always at hers, always planned in advance so she has time to tidy and buy food and arrange the pillows at an artful angle. Still, the apartment is tidier than she thought it would be, considering the state of his desk. He hands her a sweater and some pyjamas—they’re soft and well worn, faded from washing—and she pulls them on in the bathroom. Before she heads out, she stops to look at herself in the mirror. The single lightbulb casts an odd shadow on her face. She looks a little wild, a little reckless, and a little too comfortable wearing Jake’s clothes. A knock comes on the door.  
“Ames, you okay in there? I put Die Hard on and Gruber is about to show up!”  
“Yeah, I’ll be right there!” She says, willing her voice not to shake. When she looks back at herself a moment later, her pupils are blown black and wide. 

She leaves the cold of the bathroom to his hallway, padding barefoot through to the living room. He’s settled on the couch already, legs folded beneath him, the blanket she bought him for Secret Santa three years ago half covering his lap. There’s enough left over for her, but she feels bold and curious and ready for Something, so she sits on the floor in front of him, hands him a hair tie, and tells him she’s going to teach him to braid her hair. He picks it up almost immediately. He finds the rhythm, and she can feel her eyes fluttering closed as his fingers gently pull the soft strands of her hair. By the time he’s tied off a perfect French braid, she’s halfway to sleeping.  
He gets up to make popcorn. She gets up to look at her hair in the mirror, and her reflection stares back, almost like a stranger. Mirror Amy gives her a knowing smirk, and real Amy turns away. Deep down, she knows what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling. Deep down is where it will stay, for now.

Later—much later, when dark has set in completely, when the city has been lit up with lights like a million tiny pinpricks—they fall asleep on the couch, leaning against each other under one shared blanket. Die Hard 3 plays in the background, and the snow continues to fall. 

They wake with a start to an insistent banging at the door. Jake mumbles something that might be ‘who’s that?’ but might also be nonsense, and Amy wraps the blanket around herself and follows him to the door. It’s a neighbour from upstairs or downstairs looking to borrow a shovel or some sugar. Jake hands them both, shuts the door, and shuffles, squinting in the dappled sunlight, to the coffee pot. Amy likes morning Jake. He’s never been said to have sharp edges, but even his soft ones have been smoothed further. He wanders about with the barest sense of purpose, brushing his fingers on doorknobs and surfaces, yawns bubbling up without warning, his pyjama pants low on his hips. She follows him from room to room. He hardly says a thing. The only thing he asks her is, “coffee?”, to which she nods an insistent yes. She can feel a headache starting like a tin drumbeat in her left temple, and she imagines her lips zipping shut, padlocking them, throwing away the key. With seven brothers, she learned to hold her own in conversation, but she knows her tongue is wicked in the morning. He’s barely functioning at human levels. She accepts the cup he gives her and takes a long, slow swig, relishing in the smell and the warmth between her fingers. Soon, her headache recedes and he’s able to use words of multiple syllables, and they sit at the kitchen table eating Sugar-Os and chocolate milk, pretending to one another that those moments of vulnerability weren’t now burned in their minds. 

They walk the long road back to the precinct, Amy in her black boots, Jake in his high tops, and make it through the foot high snow without falling over once. When they get in the front door, she dusts him off. Her fingers linger over his snow-streaked hair, the shoulders of his navy coat, his elbows to his wrists as she dislodges the snow. He smiles at her, teasing but not mocking, and says, “thanks for keeping me company.” She blushes all the way into her hairline.  
They go into work with what feels like a secret, shared between them, ready to burst forth. 

six

Early in the New Year, they’re working a B&E in an apartment building a couple blocks over from the precinct. They end up on door duty, which Jake is pretty sure is the Captain’s punishment for spilling orange soda all over the carpet in the break room. Behind the first door is a man in his twenties, clearly still half asleep even though it’s three in the afternoon. The second contains a harassed looking father with what seems like a dozen children milling about behind him.  
Behind the third door is—  
“Ryan,” Jake says, and it comes out half whispered, half choked, like he’s stifling a cough. The guy is tall, lean, with a slight hint of Boston in his carefully neutral tone. His apartment is full of moving boxes, and there’s a light strip of skin on his left ring finger, where a wedding band would have sat.  
“Jake,” the guy says, with deliberate politeness. Jake is stunned for a moment, and then he’s all business. Amy almost gets whiplash from how fast his attitude careens around, but if the guy in the door notices, he definitely doesn’t show it. He barely blinks as Jake shows him the picture of the victim, dead-eyes his way through all the questions, and shuts the door with a firm nod when Jake eventually stops talking. As they walk away, Jake looks behind him at the blue door, firmly closed, frowning.  
“Okay, what was that?” Amy says, when it’s clear Jake is offering no explanation.  
“My ex-boyfriend.” He says. His eyes are still on the door, brow furrowed, and he doesn’t seem to realise what he’s said at first. She waits for him to elaborate, gives him the space to open up to her, but all he seems to want to do is walk backwards, staring at that blue door, trusting Amy to guide him along the hallway.

The elevator doors open in front of them, and Amy steps inside first. Still, she says nothing. Amy grew up with brothers, which meant she often had to shout to be heard, but it also taught her when to be silent and listen. Of course, back then she was learning to fight for her place at the table with her brothers, and a well placed reference to something they’d rather their parents didn’t know often got her first dibs on the after dinner cookies. Amy learned then that most people hate silence. She learned that for her brothers, a silence was just an intangible thing waiting to be filled. Jake is no different.  
“He wasn’t my first boyfriend.” He says, unprompted, and it’s like a wall has come down within him. “We dated for eighteen months. He met my mom and she gave him a bowl she made and he still has it on his window ledge. I could see it through the door.” The words come out fast, uncontrolled. “We broke up in summer of 2001. He met someone else.”  
“You broke up in 2001.” She says, and she can’t figure out why that’s significant until... “You wanted to give blood.” She says, suddenly understanding. It’s been months since that conversation in the car, but it’s weighed on her mind, the way he’d cut himself off before finishing. The _they wouldn’t let you_ is unsaid, but it hangs heavy in the air between them. He isn’t looking at her, but she can see his reflection in the smooth silver of the elevator door. His lip is between his teeth, his eyes on the shiny buttons. Floors 1, 4 and 6 are lit up. She pressed the three of them before he got in to give her longer to talk. She feels bad for that now, now that he looks like a caged animal, flighty and desperate and uncertain. This Jake is new to her. She’s never known Jake to be anything but sure of who he is.  
The elevator stops at floor 6, and the doors open with a _ding_. There’s a guy trying to move a couch into an apartment across the hall, and he looks up and watches the doors slide closed. The elevator continues its rumble down.  
“Do you wish I’d told you?” He says, after a moment. _Does it change anything?_ is what he means.  
“My brother is bi,” She says. “Rosa is bi. Did you really think I’d have a problem?”  
“No, of course not,” he says, and she hears _maybe_ in everything he does, in his sweaty palms and the nervous swipe of his tongue across his lips, in the rattlesnake breath he takes in and lets out slowly.  
“Good,” She says. She pauses. “Some of my brother’s friends are pretty great. I can set you up if you like?”  
“Cool, cool, cool.” He nods, eyes on his own reflection in the elevator doors, and she tries to ignore the stabbing pain she feels in her chest. 

They’re quiet in the elevator, and then again as they leave the building, and she can feel something bubbling in her that she tries to tamp down.  
“Is that who you were in love with?” She blurts out, when the car radio is loud enough that he can pretend he didn’t hear her. He doesn’t look at her, but she can see the flush creeping up his neck. “That night, when I came to your apartment after...” She doesn’t need to specify which night. They haven’t spoken about it, but it’s hovered near them with a big pin in it, waiting to be dealt with. Amy takes a deep breath and pulls the pin out. “You said you’d been in love.”  
“Yeah, I was in love with him,” he says, without even a pause to take a breath.  
“Are you still?” She asks. She’s looking out the window, and doesn’t notice his sidelong glance at her.  
“No,” he says, eventually. “I’m not.” They’re sitting close in the car, close enough that she can feel the shift in the air when he moves his arm to switch gears, but the distance between them has never felt greater. 

seven

It’s only after their conversation in the elevator that Amy notices that Jake gives blood dutifully every few months, and volunteers at the blood drives during the time in between. She notices a lot more than that, if she’s honest, but noticing long fingers and a sharp jaw and a swoop in his stomach when a grin is directed at her isn’t something she can deal with right now. The blood thing, she can. She catches him as he’s getting ready to leave one day, as he’s swinging his leather jacket over his shoulder with more flourish than is necessary.  
“You’re going to the blood drive tonight, right?” She says, and he looks almost suspicious. But then she says, “need a partner?” and the tension melts off of his face. She starts going with him. She gives blood regularly, too, and it just made sense to sync up their schedules so they’d both have company, and there’s nothing more to it than that.  
And if, after these sessions, they end up at her apartment or his, getting takeout and watching cop films, well, it’s just to keep an eye out for each other.  
The next time the blood drive happens, they sit side by side, squeezing stress balls, talking about nothing. She’s laughing at a story he’s telling her about getting kicked out of a Taylor Swift concert, laughing hard in that good way where it feels like her ribs are going to break, and he’s watching her with a grin so wide she can see every one of his teeth. Then a guy comes in, burly and loud and mean looking, his hair cropped short and his jaw square and stubbled. Jake’s grin drops off his face, and he swallows.  
“Who’s that?” Amy asks, still breathless from laughing, looking from the guy to Jake and back.  
“We were at the Academy at the same time. Biff Jones.” He mutters, under his breath. He’s kind of flapping his hands, running his hand over his hair and his jaw, like he’s not sure whether to hide behind it or wave at the guy. Amy takes out her phone and texts Rosa.  
_I’m giving blood with Jake and someone called Biff Jones is here. Do you know him?_  
_Bastard_ , is Rosa’s immediate reply. _He hates Jake. Do not engage._  
_Copy that._ Amy looks up, and her heart sinks, because the guy has fixed Jake in his sights with a leering grin on his face. The nurse comes to remove the needles and she thanks her and tries to usher Jake out before Biff comes over. No such luck. Amy sees him brush the nurse at the door aside carelessly and make his way to them.  
“Jakey Chin-ups!” The guy calls, and though his voice is friendly, Amy can hear the scorn in his tone. He turns to Amy. “He tell you? Guy couldn’t even do one pull up in the Academy.”  
“Neither could you, man.” Jake replies. His tone is light, but there’s a thrum of frustration running through him, deep seated and long forgotten, woken once more.  
“Yeah, but,” the guy gestures to himself, at his big frame and wide shoulders. “Mass.” He leers at Amy, who answers with a scowl. The guy shrugs, undeterred.  
“I thought you were stationed out in Queens?” Jake says, a tight smile on his face. To anyone else, he’d look casual and aloof, perhaps even bored, but Amy’s spent years studying Jake, and she can see the tension running down his spine like a live wire. She stays close, her hand on his forearm. One spark, and he’d set the whole world ablaze.  
“Nah, got transferred to the 64.” He says. “It’s better. Less weird shit going down over here.”  
“There’s weird shit everywhere, dude.” Jake says, and starts to tell him about the Oolong Slayer. Amy can see his back straighten, his confidence grow. Jake talking about police work is different than Jake talking about anything else. His words flow fast and easy, his face animated, his hands weaving passionately as he speaks. If there’s a grace to him—and there is, though it’s hidden deep below layers of sarcasm and self-deprecation—it’s in that. Biff, though, just scoffs when he’s done.  
“Knew you’d like it here, man.” He says, clapping Jake on the shoulder. Amy sees Jake’s knees buckle, just slightly. He straightens back up, his jaw set. “Loads of easy solves, good for a slacker like you.” The guy winks at Jake, as if he’s part of a secret shared between the two of them. He goes to brush past him to take his seat, but Jake, feeling bold suddenly, puts a hand on his chest.  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
The guy shrugs. “You’ve never been, y’know, the sharpest tool in the shed, bro.” He says, tapping his temple. He says this as if it’s obvious and agreed. Amy sees Jake’s jaw clench again, sees his hands ball into fists at his side.  
“We passed the same tests to get in, man.” Jake replies. His voice is hard now, the placating tone gone, and underneath it all, hurt shines through. The guy shrugs again, unbothered, and Amy grabs Jake’s hand to tug him out of the door and into the evening sunlight. Jake stands facing away from her, and the sun shining behind his bowed head silhouettes him. He turns around, but she still can’t see his face.  
“He’s a mean, rude jerk, Jake,” she says.  
“Yeah, I know,” Jake says, and she believes that he does know, that he knows his own value and worth. But guys like Biff have a way of reopening wounds that have yet to become scars, and she can see the potential Jake has to spiral.  
“You’re the best detective at the 99,” She says, and then, gestures to herself. “Tied with me, of course.” He snorts out a laugh, and she feels some of the tension loosen in her chest. She links her arm through his. “C’mon, lets go get some dinner. I’ll let you get it from Tony’s.” Out of the corner of her eye, she can see his face light up. She loves the way he shows his joy with his whole face, like he can’t help it, like the sunbeams are just bursting through. “I’m not eating it display temperature, though. It’s got meat on it, Jake!” She adds, and they keep up the argument all the way to the car. Biff isn’t forgotten, not by a long shot, but at that moment, he’s left far behind them.

 

eight

When he can’t sleep, which is often, he calls her. Sometimes she’s already awake, and she answers on the second ring, like she’d been waiting. Sometimes it wakes her, and the sleep-heavy grumble of her voice makes him smile.  
She never sounds annoyed, when she picks up. They talk for hours, barely saying anything but saying everything all at once, and she sometimes falls asleep to the soft, low timbre of his voice. Sometimes he’ll fall asleep first, but most often, they’ll look at the clock, laugh softly, and agree that sleep is long past due. They’ll argue over who’s to hang up first until he decides enough is enough and says a final goodbye.  
And every time he hangs up, she thinks of the things she could have said, if she was braver. 

On worse nights, he goes over. He asked her once, a little drunk and more than a little reckless, if she minded when he came to her apartment, seeking comfort, seeking friendship, seeking something undefinable that only she could provide. She had been sober, then, and had answered that she didn’t mind at all.  
What she didn’t say was that she looked forward to those times, because she always wants to see him, because on those nights, she gets him all to herself. She didn’t say it because she learned to stay quiet, even when it burns her from the inside out, even when it snatches her breath away like the wind. Even though this secret, the one she’s been keeping, feels like it’s lodged in the hollow of her throat. 

The last time he goes over—and she calls it the last time, even though many more follow—is a Friday at the start of September, and she has a gloriously free weekend ahead of her. She’s settled in for the night, with her hair loose and bra off and a pair of his sweats on that she’d deny having on pain of death, and she watches reruns of _Friends_ until she dozes off on the couch. The blue television light flashes somewhere in the recesses of her mind. When the doorbell buzzes, her sleeping mind supplies that it’s alarm clock monsters, and she wakes with a start and falls off the couch. The sound comes again, and she’s finally able to comprehend what it is. She looks at the clock. It reads 1am, which isn’t the latest he’s ever arrived. 

Even though she knows it’s him, she still checks the peephole, ever cautious, ever careful. He has his back to the door, but she’d know his silhouette anywhere, know the strong line of his shoulders and the curve of his neck as he looks down. He’s wearing his leather jacket with the hoodie underneath. As he turns, she sees the top few buttons of his plaid shirt are undone. She catches a glimpse of collarbone, and then opens the door. 

He’s very real to her, suddenly, as if he’s finally fully buffered and has switched from 480p to 4K. She regrets he was ever less than high definition in the first place.  
“Hey,” She says, her voice steady, her heart thrumming in her chest.  
“Hey,” he replies, quietly. He comes inside and closes the door behind him. She watches as he puts on all of her locks and bolts with a well practiced hand.  
“What was it this time?” She says, not unkindly. His visits almost always have a trigger—a sad movie, a fight with a friend, a case gone wrong.  
“Disaster stories.” He says, shrugging. He hands her his phone and she scrolls his twitter timeline as he takes off his jacket and shoes. She’s bombarded with news of death, injustice, terror, and has to close the app. It’s September 3rd, and another year hasn’t made the month any easier to handle. She locks the phone and hands it back.  
“I’m watching _Friends._ Want to join?” He does, and they make their way through season two together. 

The clock on the oven shines 4.04am when the season 2 finale finishes. Jake looks better, more relaxed, with his long limbs sprawled out and tangled up with hers. When she leans over to turn the lamp back on, he gives her a sidelong look.  
“Are those my sweatpants?” He says, and she can hear the grin in his voice, the barely disguised glee that he’s fighting back. She sits back and tugs the hem of her hoodie down, almost self consciously.  
“They might be,” She replies. “But only because you left them here once and I washed them and forgot—“  
“Take it easy, Amy,” he says, and he’s really laughing now. He sobers suddenly, and looks her up and down. He swallows, dry mouthed. “They look good.”  
And there it is, that thing they’ve been slowly crawling towards, inch by painstaking inch. It’s like she can hear the record scratch as the whole world freezes, and then goes again at double time. When her mind catches up, he’s looking at her, dark eyes round and lip between his teeth. She had waited so long for him to be ready for her that she hadn’t even thought about what she’d do when he was. She gives a long, drawn out sigh and smiles at him.  
“I’ve been thinking…” he says, hesitantly, and she gives him a look. “Yeah, I know.” He replies, with a grin. “You know how I’m amazing and you’re cooler when you hang out with me?”  
She narrows her eyes at him. “Have you been talking to Gina?”  
“She doesn’t give me a choice.” Jake says. “Anyway, in between talking about her dancing career and the bike messenger she’s seeing, she may have mentioned that she thought I should ask you out.”  
“Did she now?” Amy says. “That was nice of her.” Jake shrugs.  
“She likes you.” He says. Amy rolls her eyes. “No, she does!”  
“Why are we debating this now?”  
“Sue me, I’m nervous!”  
A nervous giggle bubbles up from her chest and she pushes his shoulder gently. He sways away from her and back, and grabs her hand before it can lose contact. His hand is warm on hers, his long fingers curling around hers. He brings it to his chest, and she can feel his heart racing.  
“Okay, just so there are no miscommunications here, I like you. _Like_ like you. Like you romantic stylez. With a ‘z’.”  
“Just shut up and kiss me, Jake,” She laughs.  
“Are you sure?” He says, and though it’s whispered, it feels like her ‘ _yes’_ travels miles. He kisses her softly, one hand on her jaw, the other hand holding hers to his chest. When she pulls back, she smiles. There’s something teasing in his eyes, like he knows what she’s thinking, and then she remembers that he almost always does. This time, something new unfurls in her chest. It feels like a flame, finally lit, ready to set her whole world alight.


End file.
